Now – before you say, “Yes, bodies as an idea are awesomecakes but my PERSONAL body is … eh” or worse … let me tell you that midwestern / midwinter is the perfect time to remember that bodies are REAL and STRANGE and AWESOME.

Babies is swim diapers, 5 year olds with suits riding in all the wrong places, teenagers getting their swagger, the 22-48 year old parents of kids who are 4 years-old, grandmas with toes that do that grandma toe thing. We have all got bodies that are perfect for playing at the indoor swimming water extravaganza that is the Wisconsin Dells Wilderness Territory (for my southern friends perhaps the best way to describe it is as the love child of Pigeon Forge + Chattanooga).

People are covered in tattoos that are precious no matter what they look like, dimples and hair that nobody predicted when they were 20, and smiles all around. Smiling at each other. Smiling at their kids, smiling at their parents. Smiling at strangers as they pass by. Eating dishes of ice cream as big as their head, everybody smiling because there is the chance that spring will come again.

Bodies are built to move and splash and walk surprising long distances while still in a hotel. It was great. Bodies are awesome. Yours is. Don’t forget that, bring your body into the springtime sun and feel the warmth of having made it through another winter.

Even when it is not a love that I recognize – or would ever want for myself. Tell me you are in love and I believe you.

For the first time ever, I listened to SCOTUS testimony. I needed a color commentator – but I tried. If I can find it again tomorrow I will try again as they listen to another case I care about. It was interesting and strange, but mainly it was interesting. My favorite part was when they tried (in a bickering sense) to figure out when homosexual marriage was UNconstitutional. The interesting idea, that except where it was banned it may somehow be intact without anybody noticing it. (or something. I think – I am SO not a lawyer y’all).

In the end, for me, it boils down to this. Conversationally, legally, socially, politically there is capital to be gained by being “married”. I am fortunate in that I am attracted to the opposite gender – so this works out ok for me. Without a religious affiliation, my concerns about being right in the eyes of G-d are non-existant.

I would love to understand (in a genuinely humble way) to understand how a G-d that might be ok with two same-gendered people living together for 25 years would somehow be angry about the word marriage. Or if that G-d was already pissed about living together, what the difference in being married would be.

I want the people that I love, and the people I have never met before, and the people in between, to be able to say (if they choose to) I am married.

Tomorrow is DOMA. I believe I am on the right side of history, and I hope the SCOTUS is too.

Today Jeff & I went into the city to hear my nephew play at Symphony Hall. He and his school mates were wonderful.

If you are 4.5 years-old the biggest draw to this kind of a day was hanging out with mom who was likely to be in a pretty good mood.

We left a little late, and cut it a little close, so I invoked “Team Pumpkin” which is code for being 100% team oriented. It is a special state of mom/son zen that is rarely used so that when it comes out we know that it is super serious. Today, as soon as I put the car in park Jeff had unbuckled himself, slid into the front seat, and started putting on his coat. He also was the one who spotted the ramp that brought us out of the underground parking and into the daylight. Team Pumpkin means everybody is thinking and working towards the goal.

When you are 4.5, mom can be pretty agreeable to little trinkets of delight for such a strange day, and she may have intentionally packed a delight or two in her purse just for the fun of it. Having made it to the beautiful hall, and having found a seat as nephew / cousin walked on stage (on the most beautiful symphony stage I have ever seen) it is time to take a look around. Happily, the performance is mostly for chaperones of competing schools and as long as Jeff is quiet it isn’t too disruptive. Look, poke, ask, wiggle, and HEY! Fruit Snacks! Awesome MOM!!!!

As nephew/cousin came off stage we were able to be right there. Me in my big proud grin, and Jeff in his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle mask from yesterday’s birthday party. Nephew/cousin hugged us both, looked pleased with the way it had gone, and listened attentively to Jeff’s recounting of yesterday’s birthday party and how he had an orange TMNT mask. We were, after all, sharing special things.

After our good-byes and final congratulations we were on to see if more adventure could be had. The Art Institute is right across the street and the lions beckoned us. After a brief flirtation with city pigeons we went inside and got in line. Frankly, I was surprised as (in MANY ways) this is not Jeff’s gig quite yet. Before paying our admission fee Jeff asked what he would get to make. We stepped out of line and I explained that this was a looking, no-touching, hand-holding kind of place.

He asked if we had already paid to get in.

I said no.

He grinned.

“I don’t want to do this”

“Perfect timing dude, thank you. What do you want to do?”

“Look for more pigeons”

and we did, on the way to McDs for lunch, then across the street to DD for a cup of coffee for me.

I am binging on Adam Savage videos. I am considering trying to go to a Maker Faire (oh hey, maybe two of them).

I want to make, I want to have the endurance to chase down a project that takes time, I want something (else) with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Maybe I’m just looking for a new beginning. Maybe I just want to build a shrine.

It would be huge, and fit in my pocket. It would be covered in pictures and ticket stubs and it would have sounds of stories and laughter. It would be TARDIS blue but it would smell like mid-winter fog. There would be water.

My memory is kind of lousy, it certainly doesn’t hold together well over time. The pictures and ticket stubs are reminders of what I need to rehearse. The Story of Grandma Catches a Fish. Cookie Day. Chicken Day. Working on the yard. The Sledding Hill.

If I am 100% present I don’t remember much about the event. If I stand outside of it to remember it then I have missed something different. It is why my writing doesn’t have the details that a Writer does. I don’t take physical or mental notes in the way that a Writer does.

I have journaled more in this year than I have in most, but they are erratic, scattered all over, and incomplete at nearly every level. Still, they are the shrine.

I am eyeballing the calendar and the end of LLV. I am not clinging to here – I am just trying to figure out how to bring it home.

I wrote a half dozen thank you notes today. I didn’t have the stamina to do all that I wanted to.

I went to volunteer today, unsure of how vocal I would be about it being my last shift. I didn’t need to worry, they already knew and they were happy that my return looked good and sad that I wasn’t going to be volunteering with them anymore.

I love taking the opportunity to meet whole new batches of people from time to time. It is an interesting internal test, and it shows my weaknesses and prides and ego in ways that are helpful for me to know about, and get perspective on. With the group I volunteered with, I was in the lowest possible sector with a disproportionate amount of knowledge. It took me awhile to learn to walk that line, I am better for having learned it.

Still, sometimes it means looking at people I have a fondness for and knowing that I won’t see them again any time soon, even more likely is that I will never see them again. Sometimes I will never know what becomes of them at all. Not everyone does this, but it is how it works for me.

So there is always the question. How far out there do I go, do I put myself, knowing that goodbye is always part of it? How important a laugh in October, and how willing am I to trade it for sorrow in March?

De-connecting is difficult, but the time for it to begin in LLV has arrived. I want to treat this sadness tenderly because I chose it.

It is interesting to watch my son navigate how he gets his sense of connection.

This past weekend there were a couple of things that we did that we were both 100% into and connected with. This morning he asked if we could do those things again. The difference is this morning I am exhausted, it is a work / school day, and I’m just not excited by the idea of doing this stuff again. So I put him off a bit, “I don’t know, we’ll see when we get home tonight, get your lunchbox.”

He tries again, suggesting something that I was 100% into and he was about 80% into. That doesn’t work either. I see him reaching into the back of his mind to figure out something that I love to do that he can tolerate.

Really, all he needs for me to help him believe that even though I am exhausted, I will make sure that there is a moment today that is ours. I didn’t muster it up this morning – but I’ll try this afternoon.

The longest “home” building of my life, and the longest one I still have access to is the home of my first husband’s parents.

For 20 years now I have walked through that door and tried hard not to kill myself on their front steps. This morning, my son and I stopped by on the way to the airport and were met with the smell of still warm cinnamon rolls. It was a wonderful family visit.

If you turn right out of their subdivision, then the quick & strange left at the light you are on one of the anchor roads of my life. I have sat in a ’90 Geo Storm (awwww yeah) in awe of the size and density of the suburbs (and judging, in a way I am now embarrassed by), I have taken the wheel and driven my first husband back to his family home, I have driven Wise Rd by myself, and I have driven it with my second husband (and then also with our son) in tow.

I know how to take to take the corner of Wise and Roselle when I want to be airborne, and how to pretend that you can’t get airborne on that corner.

I have driven that road in every weather and in every mood. For being nowhere near any place I’ve actually lived – it is how I know I’m home.

My family has spent months on long, long, vacation and the wrap-up is beginning. Here are some of the things I have learned about myself. I am honestly not upset about any of them and it will be interesting to remember over time that even in pristine circumstances these things are true for me.

1. I am an erratic exerciser. With 40 weeks of a HUGE amount of control of my schedule I still did & did not exercise in a nearly random pattern. I identify as both athletic and as a runner but if I had to submit an application to a governing board I would not have retained either of those qualifications this year.

2. City proximity is more important than being there. I LOVE that I am as close to a major city as I am and I LOVE LOVE LOVE this city, that it is filled with everything any engaged human being could possibly want. I just haven’t been down there much. Nor will I be from the looks of it. Dear City, knowing you are there is enough. To be truthful: I am semi-close to a major city when we aren’t on LLV …. I have never learned to love that city. Not even close. Not even a little bit.

3. I never learned how to invite people to my home comfortably. Sometimes I can rally for an EVENT, but like just for … the fun of it??? Yeeeeeah, I don’t know how to do that. Maybe I don’t need to *know* how – but it feels too strange for me to do just for fun. That is easier to cover when we aren’t on LLV because we are WAY out of town.

4. I want Dunkin Donuts to make my coffee. They are better at it and it makes me feel cared for. I can make my own, and have for most of this year but when the going gets tough / sad / happy / non-normal the tough gets her ass to DD for a large coffee.

5. I love hospital work. No matter what the work is. I think healthcare is fascinating in every angle and I love working in that field.

(wow, you should see the tags that wordpress is blindly throwing my direction right now – my favorite is Doctor of Divinity which must have sprung off of DD …. yeeeeeeeah. The coffee is good but it ain’t g-d.)